The Enemy
by ctmamy
Summary: Hiraoka Fumika was an average girl who worked in a small tea shop on the streets of Kyoto. She believed she was content with life as it was, and was fearful yet intrigued of the changes that threatened her home country. Sakamoto Ryouma was a ronin who wanted to see Japan change with the times. And he'd do a lot to make it happen. Of course, Fumika would end up involved with him.
1. Prologue

**_A/N: I've been mulling over his story for a bit. Firstly- Ryouma deserves more love! (I debated calling him Ryoma over Ryouma but it seems Ryouma is what is used to mainly refer to as the Ryouma used in Hakuouki lol) And I want to preface with a few things! _**

**_1\. This story is meant to be a bit fast-paced!_**

**_2\. Also, it's historically accurate AND inaccurate at times. It's not meant to be an accurate historical work of fiction. _**

**_3\. I won't be using -san, -kun, -chan. I've decided to just leave that out because this is an English story and it's not used in Hakuouki translations (except that GOD AWFUL dub- sorry) sometimes Mr. or Mrs. will be used. _**

**_4\. This gets updated when I have TIME. I'm a university student about to start my classes in a week or so- so :,) _**

**_Anyway- Enjoy!_**

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_Time._

_We never really realize how valuable time is in our day to day. Most of us take every day at face value and don't think about how limited our time on this earth really is._

_Fumika was like that. She took each day one at a time and didn't quite think much about how many days she had been on earth or how many days she would have left on earth. Most normal people do not think about that. Fumika didn't._

_You see someone you enjoy the presence of and think "I can't wait to see them again." But rarely does it cross our mind "What if this is the last time, I see you? What if between now and then something happens and you're just... Gone."_

_We don't think that way because we don't want to. And we just don't think about it. We don't see that each moment we spend with someone is as precious as the last, that the time we spend with others, or the time we have in general, is precious and easily lost._

_Fumika could've stayed that way forever if she hadn't met him._

_He didn't always stay in Kyoto. And when he did, he seemed to be busy. She couldn't count the number of times his friend with the cold glare that ran a chill up one's spine would interrupt them talking, to drag him away by the ear. So, she found myself cherishing the time they spent together. And when he left Fumika yearned to see him again._

_When he left, she feared for his life. _

_Time. _

_We don't usually think about how valuable it really is. Perhaps we should more often._


	2. 1 day to day

Hiraoka Fumika took it upon herself to make sure on the days she worked at the small tea house in Kyoto to ensure that everything was ready for the day. The tea house was owned by an elderly man and his wife who was just as old as he was. Fumika could fondly remember the elderly man, who was named Tachibana Shiro, or Mr. Tachibana to Fumika, explaining to her that the little tea house had been his fathers, and so on when she had first made acquaintance with him.

So he inherited it. And he always treated it with the utmost respect; it may not have been as extravagant a place such as Shimabara with Geiko and Maiko to serve your every whim, but it was an easy place to get into and had many sweets and delicious teas to quench one's thirst. In turn, Fumika found that she felt the need to absolutely treat the quaint shop with the utmost respect.

The shop had various visitors each day, and plenty of the customers were regulars. So Fumika knew the people who would visit more often than not. It ranged from other merchants after long days work, to a mother and their child, and some days some of the members of the infamous Shinsengumi would visit.

"They're all paying for it, so we treat them all the same," was what Mr. Tachibana had said when Fumika had brought up the Shinsengumi being there. She hadn't much against the group, only that the stories told of them left them as people who were less than desirable to interact with and that planted the seedling of worry in her chest.

Tachibana Shiro and his wife were very straight forward and of course, much more mature than she, the twenty-year-old with the soft golden looking eyes, still unmarried and seemingly not in much of a rush to get married. Fumika appreciated that Mr. Tachibana held onto the simple ideology that all of their customers are one and the same and should be treated with as much respect as they gave.

In that way, perhaps the Tachibana couple were ahead of their time.

Fumika set out to check if the dango that was being made for the day was ready to be set out in a pretty fashion, at least the ones for show. The others could stay in the back, where sneaking insects couldn't get at them.

Dango was good, Fumika thought to herself, but she much preferred Daifuku. Especially the pink coloured ones filled with red bean paste, not the ones with pieces of red bean.

If she was lucky, there would be some daifuku left over at the end of the day and Mr. Tachibana would let her take it home. He usually did.

It didn't take long for the days in Kyoto to truly start. Not even an hour after the shops began to get ready for their day would they already have people walking up and down the streets. Purchasing one thing or another or just looking at something and walking away. Soon, the Shinsengumi would be doing a patrol in the morning like they always did. And perhaps they would visit the little tea house. The dark-haired girl couldn't help but wonder which ones she'd see today when they walked by.

With the crowds of people in Japan's capital city taking to the streets, so did many of the regular customers to the Tachibana tea shop.

Fujiwara Fuuka and her young son would come every other day, Fumika noted. Apparently, her husband was a Samurai or something of the sort, so the young women would often be on her own while he was gone. Fumika wondered what it must've been like to have a Samurai as your husband. Let alone one who was affiliated with the Shinsengumi. Fujiwara Hayato just so happened to be one of the hundreds of people in the Shinsengumi.

In all, Fujiwara Fuuka seemed lonely, and her little son didn't seem to realize it. For better, of for worse.

What must it be like to be married to a Samurai? She would ponder this whenever she made contact with Fujiwara Fuuka and her young son.

Apparently, the Shinsengumi allowed people not of the Samurai class to join their ranks. Farmers, merchants, so on and so forth. If she wasn't mistaken, Fumika swore that she'd heard the leader and the vice commander of the Kyoto police were both not born into Samurai families. In fact, she'd heard the vice commander used to be a peddler for his families medicine. It sounded hard to believe considering he sounded so... Frightening.

Maybe they were also ahead of their time. In that aspect at least. Anyone could be a warrior. Why did it matter if-

"I always find you with your head in the clouds," Mr. Tachibana said in a kind voice, no malice to be found, "And the day has only just begun."

Her mind, it wandered so much.

"S-sorry," Fumika shook her head and took to taking someone's order, leaving the elderly man behind to watch her fondly.

Tachibana Shiro and his wife Mitsuki had one child. A son who had moved away- he didn't want to take over the tea shop and as much as his father felt a bit disheartened by that, he couldn't force him. Mitsuki had wanted to have another child, hoped it would be a girl, but after many attempts followed by countless failures, and their age increasing in number as the years went by; they had given up.

It was a hard pill to swallow that the couple wouldn't be able to conceive any more children, but somehow the Hiraoka girl had stumbled into their life. How cliche to say they thought of her as an extended family- as a child of their own. But they had come to care for her like they would their own child. And thus, the elderly man watched her fondly. She tended to get lost in her thoughts if someone didn't stop her.

It was not as if Fumika didn't have a loving family, or that they had passed on, she did have them, and they were still kicking. Her father was a merchant and her mother a very homely and kind housewife. Like most women. But they both chose to move to Edo with Fumika's older brother, who happened to be married to a woman who hailed from Edo. She had fallen pregnant with what would be Fumika's nephew and her parents' first grandchild.

She still hadn't met the baby, and it had been several months. His name... Her brother wrote they named him Tsubaki.

Fumika wondered what she would name her child if she ever had one.

And then soon her thoughts would wash away as the day carried on like any other day in Kyoto. The morning sun became the afternoon's sun and he shone much more brightly, perhaps even painfully so for some. And the Shinsengumi had done their Afternoon rounds, then it became the evening and then night. Where all the people were settling away for the night. And soon, in the midst of the night, the Shinsengumi's men would rear their heads once more for their final rounds of the day.

That was just how life was in Kyoto. And Fumika was content, or so she believed, with life playing out the same each day. Waking up, doing her business throughout the day and minding her own business.

But underneath the surface, underneath the life in the streets of Kyoto brewed an ugly war that would change things completely. Underneath the people, were people who had different ideas. And underneath them was change. And underneath that- well...

But for now, Fumika was content.


End file.
